Oliver Holmes – Reuters – Friday, 27 April 2012 (originally published 26 Apr)

(Reuters) – When the aspirin and alcohol swabs fell from under her clothes at a Syrian army checkpoint, Rania stood petrified, looking first down at her fallen contraband and then up at the soldier who stared straight back at her.

Rania knew that smuggling food and medicine to Syrian opposition activists was considered by security forces to be “aiding terrorists” and treated as severely as weapons smuggling.

“I thought to myself: I am dead,” said Rania, 27, recalling the incident on the outskirts of Damascus . . .

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